Weber’s Missing Track: Modeling the Power and Status Structures that Govern Social Action

• In Event: 40268 - New Looks at Old Theories

Abstract

Max Weber’s ([1922] 1978) assertion that both material and ideal interests govern human conduct is one of his most influential insights, yet he never provided a formal model of social structure to explain how these forces interact. Without such a model, he failed to lay the track over which action would be pushed, leaving the structural mechanisms of power and status underdeveloped. By contrast, Elementary Theory (ET) (Willer et al. 2014) offers a formalized approach to modeling social structure, but its reflexive actor model limits its scope to material conditions and power dynamics. This paper extends ET by incorporating belief structures, allowing us to analyze how status-based influence operates alongside power-based constraints to shape social action.This extension builds on ET’s exchange modeling framework by integrating a status structure that ranks positions by level of influence. High-status actors alter the beliefs of lower-status actors in two key ways: first, by convincing them that they are in a social exchange network rather than a power structure (prosocial belief myth), and second, by persuading them that high-status actors are altruistically motivated. These influence effects reshape strategic action within power structures, producing outcomes that cannot be explained by material conditions alone. To formalize this integration, we construct a composite model that represents both belief and material interests, showing how the interaction of power and influence shapes structure itself. Finally, we apply ET’s resistance equation to predict outcomes, demonstrating how this framework enhances our understanding of status, power, and strategic action in social systems. This approach provides a theoretical model for connecting individual cognition and structural dynamics, reinforcing the claim that both material and ideal interests govern human conduct.

Authors

• Pamela E. Emanuelson, North Dakota State University

• David Willer, University of South Carolina